An Asian-born golfer had never won a men’s major. To right the record, he had to become ‘The Tiger Killer’

Y.E. Yang hadn’t even heard of golf until he was 19, but at the 2009 PGA Championship pulled off one of the all-time great upsets to win a historic first major.

After tossing and turning all through the night, Y.E. Yang awoke in uncharted waters. To complicate matters further, the golfing equivalent of the kraken circled around him. On Sunday morning at the 2009 PGA Championship, the then-37-year-old South Korean – ranked 110th in the world – stood just 18 holes away from becoming the first Asian-born player to win a major golf championship. Yet for one piece of history to be penned, another would have to be erased. Tiger Woods, world No. 1 for four years and counting, had never before surrendered a major after starting the final round atop the leaderboard – 14 leads, 14 wins. Two shots clear, few tuning in to the finale at Hazeltine National in Chaska, Minnesota, expected that run to be snuffed out. Little did they know, “The Tiger Killer” was on the hunt. In 1978, a two-year-old Woods doddered onto the set of the “The Mike Douglas Show” to showcase his already-impressive swing to the American public. By contrast, Yang – seven years his senior – had not even heard of a sport called golf until he was 19.